A leading drug research centre has distanced itself from the NSW government’s bizarre “stoner sloth” campaign, which attempts to warn teenagers against the dangers of sustained marijuana use by depicting them as disturbingly oversized versions of the South American mammal.

In a pyrrhic victory for the NSW government, the stoner sloth campaign has gone viral but the anti-drug message appears to have lost out to the internet’s dual love of mocking failed ad campaigns, and sloths.

“In this case, those general recommendations were things like being aware that teenagers are intelligent and have access to a lot of information, so campaign approaches should respect them and give them credit by avoiding hyperbole,” the statement said.

They said they were not involved in the campaign development and learned of the stoner sloth idea when the ads were released this week, and added: “While we wish the NSW government luck in future cannabis campaigns, the current stoner sloth campaign doesn’t reflect NCPIC views on how cannabis harms campaigns should be approached, as was implied by the media.”

In an embarrassing oversight, the stoner sloth campaign shares a name with an online cannabis store. Leave the Australian domain off stonersloth.com.au and you will be directed to a website with the tagline, “enjoy every smoking experience”.

The Tumblr page for the campaign launched last month, but the campaign and its three videos were released this week.

The first video stars a sloth named Jason, who looks and sounds like a wookiee without the Star Wars royalties. Jason is wearing a Teen Wolf-style basketball singlet. He is asked to pass the salt, a difficult task when you have unwieldy long talons instead of hands, and instead fetches the salad. As the video title says, the struggle is real.

The next video stars a sloth called Delilah, who wears a blue bow perched atop her brow to signify her assigned gender. She is being performance-shamed in class for failing to complete an exam.

The final video stars a sloth named David, who fails to appropriately respond to an anecdote concerning a teenage girl’s abhorrence of people who wear socks with sandals. This clip drew additional criticism because the teenagers (except Dave) are holding red plastic cups that have become synonymous even in Australia with drinking alcohol, thanks to American college movies. The cups have been taken as sending the message that while marijuana is bad, alcohol is fine.

All three videos end with a fellow teenager disparagingly shaking their head and muttering “stoner sloth”.

Thirteen Stoner Sloth parody videos have been posted on YouTube in the past 18 hours.

In a statement printed on Mashable, the Department of Premier and Cabinet said the campaign was developed under its purview in conjunction with NSW Health.

“The stoner sloth public awareness campaign has been designed to encourage positive behaviours in young people before bad habits start, and motivate discontinued use of cannabis before they become dependent,” the statement said.

However public reviews of the campaign on social media have questioned its motivational capacity.

Madeleine Baud (@HeyBaudelaire)

I think the people who made #stonersloth vastly underestimate the public's hero-worship of sloths.